How will 2019 end for these 5 Latin American presidents?

The presidents of Colombia, Iván Duque, and Chile, Sebastián Piñera, have faced a political and social crisis, which makes them the most unpopular presidents of the region. Meanwhile, the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and the president of Peru, Martín Vizcarra, end up with favorable degrees according to the polls.

The Association of Political Communication (ACOP) gathered the data of the main pollsters of some countries that allow to visualize the popularity and the perception that the citizenship has regarding the management of their leaders.

These are some of the cases to highlight in the Latin American region:

1. Peru – Martín Vizcarra

According to the results of Ipsos in October, Vizcarra's popularity reaches 79 percent approval, becoming the highest score of the presidents of the region. These results, not only position him to end the year in a good way, but that number also presented an increase of 31 points before the last survey published by the same research institute.

The main reason for the approval and wide popularity's increase of Vizcarra is mainly due to an internal crisis that has taken Peruvians to the streets to request a change of Congress. Since October, the president had decreed the dissolution of Congress and the call for new parliamentary elections that would allow the legislative body to represent citizenship requests more consistently.

The Congress was, for the most part of opposition, and the main criticism was corruption and lack of confidence in it. At the time, Vizcarra announced that the decision was taken to "put an end to this stage of political entrapment that has prevented Peru from growing at the pace of its possibilities," according to the BBC. From there, the approval of the president began to rise.

2. Mexico – Andrés Manuel López Obrador

The Mexican arrives at the end of the year with one of the highest scores in Latin America and has just completed his first year of office. In this, bilateral relations with the United States and the fight against drug trafficking have been some of his biggest challenges, and has won several detractors. However, his anti-corruption speech, with which he came to the presidency, in addition to being the first left Mexican president, have been two reasons that put him in this position.

AMLO is both loved and hated, so from one month to another it usually happens that his popularity goes up or down. However, these changes have not been really harmful for the president. Although it dropped 5 points compared to November, for the first days of December, his approval remains around 58-60. This, according to data from the Mitofsky Consultation for The Economist, which measures daily the levels of approval and disapproval of the president through a statistical exercise called #AMLOTrackingPoll.

Read also: Mexico: this is how López Obrador's first year ends

Although he continues to be one of the presidents with the highest approval in the region, the latest results, although barely partial in December and not definitive, show the lowest point since 7 months ago.

3. Ecuador – Lenín Moreno

Ecuador was one of the precursors in the wave of protests of the second half of 2019 in the region, when the President decreed the rise in the price of gasoline. People went out to protests on the streets for days, which led him to decree a state of emergency and ended up repealing said law. At that time, in October, Lenin's approval fell to 22 percent, the lowest point since the presidential term began, according to Opinion Profiles.

Since then, the country has been in constant protests and even a National strike took place, which has worsened the approval of both the president and multiple state agencies. In 2017, Moreno reached his peak of approval with 77 percent, but today the numbers have been reversed and his disapproval reaches 71 percent, according to Cedatos in his October survey.

4. Colombia – Iván Duque

In his first 15 months of office, Iván Duque faces one of the worst governance crises in the country. Since November 21, Colombians have mobilized on the streets demanding answers from the government regarding different issues that afflict them. These days, Duque has faced 3 National strikes that have cost him points in his popularity, which has also come down since his term began.

According to the latest Gallup Poll survey, in November, the disapproval of the Colombian president reaches 70 percent. The results also showed that 79 percent of respondents think the country is getting worse.

Regarding the National Strike, which has criticized the lack of forceful responses from the president, 74 percent of the respondents agree with the protests and 96 percent support the peaceful demonstrations.

Read also: The Colombian government's responses to the National Strike

5. Chile – Sebastián Piñera

For almost two months, Chileans have been protesting in the streets in what began as a reaction to the rise in the subway. The demonstrations were transformed into a disagreement before different situations facing the country in education, health, and reteirment issues.

Given this, President Sebastián Piñera has taken different actions until the formation of a committee to change the Constitution, which was one of the citizens' requests, and a partial change of his cabinet. However, nothing seems to satisfy Chileans and the popularity of Piñera does not stop going down, as thousands of them ask for the president's resignation.

Public Square Cadem polls show the lowest point of Sebastián Piñera since his presidential term began. All November, the president broke an unpopularity record. According to this, the approval of his management reaches the lowest point: 12 percent. Meanwhile, their disapproval continues to rise to 77 percent.